The Will O' Wisps
by CloudCuckooLandHasAQueen
Summary: I watched their reunion from my usual perch behind Liesel's shoulder. It seemed that at last, something had gone right for the pair. They were no longer alone among swarms of people. (Blanket Disclaimer: I do not own The Book Thief. I'm not that awesome.)
1. Reunion

*****I almost wish I could have told him*****

**He was going to live but his family was dead.**

**But the Book Thief remained.**

**I didn't tell him it wasn't his time.**

**I had no time for special treatment.**

For the longest time, Max Vandenburg thought that the only sensations he would feel would be the crack of a whip, the burn of his lungs in exhaustion, the hollowness of his stomach, and the undefinable smell of death that surrounded him like a familiar woolen cloak. . There was one officer, not much more than a boy who would slip them bits of bread every once in a while. Max prayed that he wouldn't be caught for all their sakes. He thought that the only sounds he would hear would be the harsh words of men both cruel in nature and too afraid to step away from the atrocities for fear of their families alike or the agony of the men that surrounded him. Most cared little for speaking, but some would whisper into his ear, carrying on about their long lost families. But at one point, the sensations shifted and the scenery changed slightly. The camp was quickly overrun, SS officers were killed or fled, but that boy pretending to be a man remained and proved that he was a man, as he stood up straight with his shoulders back despite the uniform he wore and he spoke in halting English.

"Thank God. You must save them."

His hat and his jacket were torn from his shoulders and dropped on the ground before him as he waited for me.

*****A Note on Werner Obinger*****

**This soldier never wanted to be there.**

**He let them do these horrible things.**

**He thought it was only fair to meet me now.**

Max watched through heavy bleary eyes as the world he had come to accept was turned on its head once more and he hoped that maybe, just maybe, it would be better this time.

*****They didn't kill the Nazi boy*****

**They pitied him enough to let him help.**

**Later Werner Obinger would learn his street was bombed.**

**He met me at the bottom of a drink.**

This fact no longer held any relevance for Max. He no longer cared for the physical manifestation of the reason he was probably still alive. He only cared for the small amounts of bread and broth the Americans were allowing him to eat, watching him with pitying eyes as he devoured it all without pride. It was only then that he realized he could live. He could possibly live and get out and try to find his family. His poor family that he was forced to abandon for the sake of survival. Those who thought that dying together was better than living apart were who he could seek. He could also find Hans and Rosa, and thank them so much for their care.

Then there was Liesel She was literally the only thing he thought of when he tried to sleep. The little book thief would linger in his thoughts, reading aloud from her stolen books and filling him with a sense of calm that no other thought could provide. His illusions of Liesel would soon morph into delusions and hallucinations as time went on, but as his mind went back to some semblance of normalcy, he no longer thought of the little girl stuck in the time he spent in her basement, but the woman she would almost be becoming by now. She must think he was dead. He had to get better, stand up, and walk back to Himmel Street to see her again. It was a new goal in a steadily growing list.

**Max Vandenburg thought that a street called Heaven would be invincible.**

**They were German civilians.**

**Himmel Street was supposed to be safe.**

Instead, Max wandered through the wreckage that still remained two years after the bombing. They were all dead two years and he hadn't even felt it. He doubted he would have had the energy to care at the time even if he knew.

*****That was a lie*****

"Excuse me, can I help you?" A weary looking man with hair like dishwater asked.

"This is…all gone." It was all Max could express. How could he explain to this complete stranger that his hope for at least one aspect of his life to be intact had just been shattered completely? How could he explain how the will to live practically seeped from him the moment he realized he would never see his little Word Shaker all grown up? Years at The man seemed to take pity on him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"It was a misread on a map. The sirens didn't go off. Everyone died except for one girl. I think she was fourteen or so—" In that moment, Max dared to hope. Two years ago, Liesel would have been around that age. "—She was in the basement writing something. I drug her out myself."

"Liesel?" The name slipped through Max's lips before the other man could go on.

"Yes…" The stranger looked at him curiously, "Do you know her?"

"S-she's my niece." Max lied halfheartedly, "Where is she?"

The man shrugged, his disbelief obvious and his apathy more so."I don't know where she went."

Liesel was alive. That was something to cling to, that was a small bit of hope he had even if he had absolutely no clue where she was. She was alive and she was able to grow up. No doubt she would be a beautiful girl almost a woman by now. She had the makings of a very pretty creature when he last saw her, a fledging with dangerous eyes. Intelligent eyes.

*****Intelligent eyes are always dangerous*****

After learning that Liesel was alive and there was a chance that he could have some scrap of something resembling a family, Max decided he would see her. While others were searching desperately for their lost family members or trying to get healthy and a job to work and survive so that eventually they might live again, a Jew was searching for a German. It was a laughable concept really. Many would think that he would regard Germans with hatred, even those brave souls that hid him in their basement but he felt no such resentment. He felt pity for these souls, so easily led in their fear. Hans Rosa and Liesel (especially Liesel) were so brave. Even in her youth, Liesel knew the importance of keeping him a secret, she knew that the Fuhrer was a figure to be feared and hated, not idolized, and she understood the power knowledge had.

Max went through the town asking around before he was led to Herr Steiner's Tailor Shop. Apparently, even in times of crisis, even as the Americans troops overran the town, people still wanted suits. It felt as if he were starving all over again, and a small bit of bread was rolling around his stomach and making him nauseous as he stood in front of the shop. There was no way he would ever look like a customer. In fact, he knew for certain that the moment he walked in, Alex Steiner would see a run down and haggard looking Jew. He would see a man that looked much older than he actually was, who had been beaten down and starved but not killed. Without thinking about it any longer, he pushed open the door and walked in.

Before he could even finish his inquiry Liesel flew out and into his arms, much to the surprise of Herr Steiner.

They both cried. He littered her face with kisses and found that their knees could no longer support them and they both ended up on the ground, crying and reveling in the fact that the other was alive. He was invited to a tense and silent dinner with Ilsa and her husband, both former Nazi sympathizers as far as Max was concerned. Liesel would later refer him the words that Ilsa Herrmann confided in her one evening in the library.

*****I hate the Fuhrer too*****

He still felt uncomfortable living in the home of the Bürgermeister, Ilsa insisted adamantly on Liesel's behalf that there was no need to spend the tiniest bit of money he had on a room for the night. Liesel hadn't said a word the entire time. It felt as if the words had been shaken right out of the Word Shaker. Max so wanted them back, especially as he laid on a bed far too comfortable for a coward like him and stared up at the ceiling wondering what she was doing. He wanted to hear new words from her, wanted a sign that her obsession continued because that girl had a real talent for plucking them from the air and forming silken lace. Max wandered to the library and low and behold, Liesel was there, still dressed in clothing finer than anything that she wore on Himmel Street, her hair still swept up into a bun, and the only thing familiar was the book in her hands. Liesel was foreign and alien now, but still the same.

"Liesel." The name still felt like clay on his tongue.

She looked up at him, not remotely startled, "Nightmares Max?"

*****What Max did next*****

**He shook his head.**

** He didn't bother telling her that he'd have to sleep first for nightmares to come.**

* * *

><p>AN. Thinking about continuing this. Tell me what you think and I might!


	2. Settling In

**A/N: I decided to continue this! Thanks for the follows and review!**

"Were you having nightmares?" Max asked, hoping for an honest answer.

"I don't have nightmares. Not anymore, at least." Liesel said, and there was no trace of a lie etched in her features, "I used to have nightmares about my brother when we were on the train and my mother but—but I stopped them. I was surrounded by Mama and Papa and every wonderful person on Himmel Street and thrust into a new world and I didn't have time to be sad during the day. After I realized that my letters to my mother wouldn't ever have replies, I thought long and hard on it. I decided to stop being sad and stop having nightmares. So I did. Then when the bombing happened—" Max still winced at what was still fresh information "—I was sad, terrified, upset, and then Ilsa brought me into her home and surrounded me with books. I decided that I wouldn't use the books to keep me busy and keep everything in little boxes that would fall open when I fell asleep, but that I'd use them to help me let go…help me move past it. And so…I did. The only reason I'm still here—" Liesel gestured around the room halfheartedly, "—is because I was waiting to see if I'd hear news of you."

Max marveled at the sheer brilliance that was Liesel. The way she put it made sense. He didn't think that he would be able to logic his way out of having terrifying nightmares, but it was amazing that with what tragedy that had touched her spirit, Liesel knew nothing but how to move on.

"Frankly, I was waiting to be told you were dead. Then I'd put you in a box for a while and then let you go."

"And now that I'm not?"

"I don't know." Liesel admitted, "I wasn't exactly prepared for the possibility that you were alive—or that you would come back."

Max's hands found Liesel's, "Of course I would! Why wouldn't I?"

"I wouldn't come back here if I had left." Liesel murmured, staring down at their entwined hands.

Her hands were smaller, thinner, and more delicate than his own, looking more like two spindly pieces of a snowflake. His hands were larger and in their natural state would look more meaty, but instead simply looked big boned and skeletal. He pressed his lips against hers with a small smile, "If you thought that there were people worth coming back for, you would, Liesel."

Liesel had no reply for that.

*****A Note on the word shaker*****

**She's rarely wordless.**

Max's addition to the household actually caused very little chaos. Ilsa continued reading all day, her husband was trying to work with the soldiers occupying Molching for the sake of the German people or something. He didn't quite know what the man's stake in everything was, but he was kind enough to harbor a Jew postwar, so it seemed that Max was at least useful in that sense. Liesel was still attending school and occasionally dropped by Alex Steiner's shop to help him out. Max himself spent every day looking for some form of work. Occasionally, he got it, but most of the time he spent the day wandering and looking at the damage the war caused Germany's own people. Everyone was poor and hungry, but many were still brainwashed into hating the Americans finally providing some relief. Then every night, after such a disheartening march, Max would return and find Liesel in the library.

After the nightmare conversation, whatever dam that seemed to exist between them seemed to break. They spoke of years before they met and after he was forced to leave. Somehow, one night weeks later, his head ended up in her lap and her fingers were laced through his hair—hair like feathers, he remembered her describing it as….it was finally growing back again—as he spoke so quietly. It was only when she tensed and her fingers became more gentle in their massage that he knew for certain that she could hear every word.

"We were treated like less than animals. They shaved our heads and forced us to work and near the end there was the shooting…so much death. That smell. I will never forget that smell."

*****I Will Never Forget The Smell Of Those Places*****

Liesel listened quietly, until somehow, the burden was lifted. He had no idea he would tell her of Dachau that night. In fact, he never wanted to tell anyone at all, let alone her. She was such an innocent soul and didn't need that kind of burden. He couldn't fix it nor could she, but she would try anyway. He didn't know whether or not that should break his heart or make him proud. Neither emotion stopped him from reaching up and rubbing her knee as he spoke. Her presence made him feel as if he floated among the clouds themselves

"I'm not staying here forever." Liesel announced about a month after Max dropped back into her life. She was sitting with her legs flung carelessly over his and her back against the arm of the settee they were on. It occurred to Max that this wasn't the most appropriate position to take. He was so acutely aware of the warm pressure her legs provided that he _almost _missed what she said. He asked anyway.

"What?"

"I'm not staying here forever…not in this house, this town or any of that. I'm sick of it here." She declared resolutely closing her book.

"Where do you want to go?"

"…England. Or America or Australia or something! I've been learning English. I try to practice every chance I get, but I still won't be able to leave for a while because I don't have money and traveling is limited. It's so frustrating."

Max sighed, clasping her knee, "Be patient, Liesel. In the meantime you could get better at English.

*****Max Did Not Think That The Suggestion would be dangerous*****

He first saw them while walking back from work. The two sat side by side, pouring over a book. Every once in a while Liesel would giggle. The man was a soldier, little more than a boy swimming in his American uniform, but to Liesel, he was a man that could bring new words and with them new meanings. The boy was fair haired more like her than the way she described her fair haired friend Rudy, but with bright blue eyes and a few freckles across his nose. Max didn't like him. He had absolutely no logical reason not to like him, but he didn't.


	3. Just Be You

So **I know this is super short and it's been a while but I decided it was better to post little rather than nothing at all. My laptop actually broke and I'm operating on a borrowed one right now because I'm having a few financial issues. School is also in full swing and I have to go job hunting again soon. This has been a pain. Sorry for the inconvienence! **

Liesel often said things that Max couldn't understand under her breath as she went about her day. She learned to say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, slowly building her vocabulary in English. The American soldier made himself scarce for the most part, only offering to sit on a stone wall a little ways in the country. It made him look bad, to consort with former Nazi sympathizers. Max found that a cowardly excuse, considering that he himself, a Jew by both blood and practice, stayed under their roof with little question. They were caught up in the fear of it all.

_**Fear: That which turns adults into sheep.**_

He wiped the grime from his brow as he walked back to Liesel. That was the thing about his life: He had no home; Herr Herrmann's monstrosity of a house certainly didn't suffice and his had long since been reduced to rubble, and his family was likely thrown in shallow graves. Instead, he had Liesel. He simply found her earlier than expected. She sat on the stone wall, next to the American boy again, as she struggled with a word as he wrote it on a slate board with a stub of chalk. Her brow was furrowed and he had a ghost of a smile on his face as she stumbled through the foreign language. Max stepped on a twig, alerting the pair of his arrival. They jumped from their own little world, a light blush tinging the American's cheeks.

"MAX!" Liesel leapt from her perch and barreled into him as enthusiastically as ever. He reveled in that embrace before she pulled away stiffly. Max's eyes landed on the American's as he cleared his throat.

"Hello herr—"

"Vandenburg. Max Vandenburg." Max kept his tone light. Liesel was used to his more dreary moods, but her poor teacher probably wasn't.

"Oh. I'm Simon Marshall." His German was good, heavily accented, but fairly flawless in grammar and expression. He must have learned it quite recently.

"Your German is very good."

"Thanks. I've only been learning these past couple uh years."

"His accent's atrocious though." Liesel announced freely, ruffling his hair, "But I've been trying to help him improve on that as well."

"Are you the one teaching Liesel English?" Max already knew, but for some reason he wanted some form of confirmation.

"Yes. She's very good at it. Words just come to her."

Max smiled fondly at Liesel, "I must be going now."

_**What Max didn't hear:**_

"_**Is that your sweetheart?"**_

"_**Nein—I mean no. He's family" **_

Max was in a rather foul mood for the rest of the day. He found his job wasn't particularly mentally stimulating. It allowed him too much time to think about things. He thought about his lost family. Some might still be alive, scattered among the world after running for their lives but his mother, his poor mother, was with God. That was a funny thing to think. He wondered if he even believed in God after this. He banished that blasphemous thought immediately. He had nothing if not his faith. His mother would have him flayed alive if she thought for a moment he could forsake it.

_**Mrs. Vanderburg's influence was strong even after I carried her away.**_

That night he was back in the camp again. The smell of burnt flesh filled his nose and for some reason the anguished cry of his mother tore through to him. He was running, but it didn't make sense, his mother wasn't there. He missed her dearly. He missed the entirety of his family and they were all there and screaming, but they weren't there. They couldn't be there. They were—. He woke with Liesel sitting beside him, her tiny hand clutched between both of his in a death grip. The poor lighting made her look like a creature of the night, a shade with yellowed hair wishing to take his soul far away from his bed in Herr Herrmann's house. Max let go and reached for her face as soon as the illusion was broken and pulled her close to him without any regard for dignity or propriety. She wrapped herself around his shaking form, her head lying right over his rapidly beating heart.

"Why are you here?"

"You were screaming."Liesel replied, gently rubbing circles into his chest with one hand and into the palm of his own hand with the other.

He loosened his grip on her, his arm only flung limply across her back, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Max. I just don't know what to do."

"_**Just be you"**_

She wriggled closer to him, pressing herself even closer. Max in turn tugged the blankets over their bodies, feeling the warmth from Liesel calm him. "Just be you, Liesel."

**I'll try to get to you sooner next time, however, I can't make any guarantees. Thank you for your support.**


	4. Leaving It All Behind

**Okay, so it's been a while and you all probably want to kill me, but here it is! The final chapter! I meant for this one to be short from the beginning.**

Sometimes, Max still had bad dreams. Most of the time, he could will them away like Liesel. He wasn't Liesel though. He felt like he had none of her resilience and unlike most people, equated her troubles with his. Just because she didn't have the ink staining her wrist didn't mean that she didn't suffer as he did. In his mind, they stacked up about the same.

Her family was dead.

His family was dead.

He was beneath a whip.

She was beneath rubble.

Some nights, he wished that she didn't empathize with him so terribly much that he couldn't even find irritation with empty words because there weren't any. Nothing Liesel ever said was empty. She never tried to whisper sweet nothings in his ear or tried to tell him that there was a reason for it all, because she knew exactly how insulting it was. Everyone had said such things to her. So Max quietly watched her with the American boy until her English was passable and he was returned to his homeland. Max was secretly glad of that, as there wasn't any chance that he would take Liesel with him.

**I met Simon at a respectable age**

**He welcomed me when it was time**

Liesel was sitting on his bed when he returned from work (another odd job, another meal, another practically useless bill shoved into his pocket). They almost stopped the guise of rooming apart entirely, and their benefactors pretended like they didn't see the space between them dissolving rapidly. She looked like she was going to say something. Max blinked, trying to refocus his attention on something other than the fact that she sat on his bed so casually that it could be _their _bed, fingering the woolen blanket stretched across it nervously.

"Ilsa and her husband wish to leave Germany."

That wasn't exactly surprising. They were enemies in the eyes of most involved and they were more vulnerable remaining in Germany, or Europe as a whole. "Is that so?"

"They—they want to take me with them."

Max's heart felt like it was going to pound a hole in his chest and fall out, hitting the floor with a wet thud. "I see." He wanted to know exactly why she looked so nervous, why she felt the need to tell him with in such a manner. "When do you depart?"

"I don't know yet." Liesel shook her head vigorously.

Max took a chance. He knelt down in front of her and grasped her hands in his. Most thoughts of human contact made him shudder, but when it came to Liesel, touches were light and free or comforting when they needed to be, "I would miss you, Liesel."

"Max—" she whispered but was immediately silenced by his hand on her cheek. Her eyes slowly closed at she leaned into his touch, taking her free hand and pressing his up against her face. He stroked the corner of her mouth with his thumb, not quite aware of what he was doing or what he thought he would accomplish. "Max," she tried again, "Max, I want you to come with us."

The tension that choked the air finally dissipated, as he looked up at her. She wasn't smiling but her eyes (dark, beautiful brown eyes) were sincere. "Liesel I—"

"I didn't think you would want to stay here." She began to speak rapidly, words falling from her lips so quickly that he could barely catch them. "It'll be easier for you to leave Germany than for us—unless your with us. That's what I told Herr Herrmann when we were discussing and they said you were a grown man and could make such decisions for yourself and I was scared that you wouldn't come with me because you're the only family I have—"

"Liesel." She kept blathering for a moment longer. He tried again, "Liesel." He had both of her hands clutched in his on her lap again, "Liesel. I won't leave you."

"Everybody leaves." Liesel shuddered, "Everybody—it's not always their fault but I can't assume that you'll always be there because you are like a brother to me because—you are your own person."

"I may be my own person, but I'm tied to you, Liesel." Max tried his best to show his sincerity, "Although—I don't know how I feel about that big brother comment."

She launched herself at him, clinging to him tightly. Max almost fell to the ground with the force of her embrace.

"We will go to Australia," she said, "it's far enough for the Herrmanns and it's far enough for me—is it far enough for you?"

"I don't need to be distant from it, Liesel, I just need you to be there."

She clutched him even harder, and for the first time he saw her cry. Even though he was aware that someday, he might have to give her up to someone else, in that moment he felt he could fantasize a little. Max hoped that he could get a decent job and buy books for her faster than she could read them. He would purchase a typewriter for both of them to use and he would never, ever, think of leaving her side for a single moment, unless it was asked of him. Families endured sorrow together, after all.

**Years later I passed Max Vandenburg**

**Long before his time to die**

**He dealt in money of some kind**

**His wife as a writer and linguist**

**Three children were given bittersweet names**

**Rosa, Elsa, and Hans**


End file.
